"To prevent every danger which might arise to American freedom from continuing too long in office, it is earnestly recommended that we set an obligation on the holder of that office to go out after a certain period." -- Thomas Jefferson

Monday, August 15, 2011

Readers of Erne Lewis' "An Act of Self-Defense" who have also read Vince Flynn's "Term Limits" will not be able to help comparing the two. For one thing, both novels revolve around frustrated Americans who target -- literally -- Congress members in a revolutionary attempt to get the federal government under control.

In Lewis' version, the four-person rebel cadre call themselves the Term Limits Revolution and threaten to kill one Congress member per day until a 8-year term limits amendment is passed and sent to the states for ratification. Once they do that, the TLR promised to stand down and the states are free to ratify or reject it.

In the TLR's initial threat to Congress, they argue "Thomas Jefferson believed the failure to include term limits in the Constitution was a fatal error. He predicted another revolution would be necessary to regain the individual rights lost to the power-loving politicians who would, over time, increase their power at the cost of our liberty. Jefferson could not have foreseen that the federal government would today be capable of tracking our every move and communication..."

This last sentence provides much of the suspense that makes this Lewis' first novel a page-turner. The book shows, rather dramatically, how the Patriot Act and other Congressional excesses can be used not only to track down legitimate threats like the TLR, but also misused to harrass innocent Americans by overly aggressive law enforcement or, worse, for purely political reasons.

In one dramatic example, a no-knock warrantless raid on the president of a national term limits advocacy organization -- yikes! -- goes awry with tragic results. And it turns out the target of the raid had no connection or knowledge of the TLR.

Lewis has done his homework, both on the term limits issue and on the new-fangled powers government has usurped by exploiting people's fear of Muslim terrorists following 9/11.

Much like with the Flynn book, the reader finds himself identifying a little too closely with the revolutionaries. Fortunately, in the real world, we may indeed need a term limits revolution, but not one armed with guns and bombs.

Wednesday, August 10, 2011

Today the Florida 4th District Court of Appeals reversed a lower court decision that had overturned voter-approved term limits in Broward County.

In other words, the court has ruled that county commissioner term limits are constitutional in Florida.

Yes, Florida’s county commissioner term limits laws are safe (for now) from attack by local politicians via the courts!

It was expected that county term limits would win at the Florida Supreme Court level, but there were concerns about the appellate court case because it looked at a narrower question than home rule and the right of citizens to impose term limits at the county level. The fear was that local politicians would try to use an adverse appellate decision to void local term limits laws before the case got to the Supreme Court. Two Palm Beach County commissioners, for instance, announced they planned to do just that.

But no more.

Today marks a great victory for the voters and a loss for professional politicians.

Thanks to the Broward County attorney’s office for doing a great job in defending the people’s will and all the term limits supporters around the state that rallied behind their popular term limits laws.

For the full story as it unfolded, see the blog www.pbctermlimits.com.